Expanding on the Clans

Sorry no Dear Diary this week -- was on a family trip through yesterday. Related: shout-out to the Michigan Ski Team -- I was that one guy at Crystal with the kickin' Fischer demos and a way of swinging my arms while carving that looks like I'm shtupping a donkey (thanks, cock-ass Winter Walden instructor in 1991).

Instead, I give you three new columns to the instant classic "Clans" breakdown by MVictors, Lew, and the Hoover Street Rag, referenced atop Tuesday's "Unverified Voracity" column. The new categories:

Standing atop the little garden outcropping at Blimpy Burger and trying to engage the sadly misinformed Cotton Pickers waiting in line in an RR versus Carr debate.

At the Bo Clan guy's house, trying to convince everybody that THIS win over Notre Dame is going to be the start of something special. As RR becomes less defensible late in the year, take an increasing interest in the chili.

"It’s New Years Day just like the day before. Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another years gone by, and I was thinking once again, 'How can I take this losing hand and somehow win?'"

"Change it had to come, we knew it all along. We were liberated from the fall that's all. But the world looks just the same. And history ain't changed 'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war."

I was firmly in the In Rod We Trusted camp (I even have the T-Shirt!) until about halftime against Iowa. However, I'm firmly rooted in The Rebellion as far as my game watching habits. It's not that I'm too emotional, it's that everyone else doesn't care enough--particularly my Miami (YTM) wife, my two-month old daughter, and my dog.

The triple option is the most beautiful offense ever conceived by man. It ought to be mandatory for all college teams to run the option. I also attended Michigan at the height of the Bo years (77-81) and loved every minute of every game.

I'll stand behind him when the season starts, but I'm still bitter. Hope + Excitement (along with massive frustration) are now being replaced by Stodgy + Expected (along with a limp future)

I keep thinking, We could have been a contender! We coulda been somebody! A national emphasis on recruiting is now replaced by a regional emphasis. As a logical extension, we should just recruit at Pioneer HS and really show MSU who owns A2.

The title says it all, plus Lady Gaga is avant garde, much like the spread offense was to the Lloyd Loyalists.

Also, I can't even claim to be in the pragmatist group. I'm so stupidly in the Decatur Clan it's scary. I called for a RichRod contract extension after the ND game. Now I'm glad he was fired and am embracing Hoke.

My only true trait is being unabashedly optimistic about anything that could even remotely go right until it is definitely proven to have gone wrong.

"Nowhere is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours."

Which clan are you a member of if you watch away games via liveblog on your iPhone? That's how I managed to keep up with the PSU game while at a wedding reception,

It's also how I followed the IU game--long distance, while dirtbiking in Moab! Every time our group stopped for a break, i checked to see whether we had service. Caught the winning drive in the middle of nowhere at 10,000 feet. Epic.

I'm a pretty young M fan being only 16 and I find I don't really fit in any clan because I'm not old enough to fit in most places and I'm not a Lloyd loyalist maybe we need a youngin clan or something haha just thinking out loud here

Misopogon, I almost fell out of my chair reading that. Was that game played anywhere else other than from the porch of a State St. flophouse in the fall of 2001? Great location for the hockey games as well. Leave Yost during the intermissions, chug some beverages, head back when the game came back on the TV.

Those were some good times...I wished I remembered them better...

"I've got an idea--an idea so smart that my head would explode if I even began to know what I'm talking about." - Peter Griffin

We got the idea from a flophouse on State Street near Hoover in the late 90s, and then played it ourselves at 308 E. Willam c. 2002-03 seasons. We added "Will Bong for Boobs" until a cop came up and told us we had to shut the game down. We asked if we can still do it for Ohio State and he was like, "Well of course you can do it for Ohio State!"

This was also when we started singing re-written versions of other teams' fight songs to opposing fans as they walked by, e.g.

Up above the ol' Red Cedar,
There's a team that's making bail,
Their specialty's marauding, and getting put in jail.
Spartan teams will bust your pot-luck,
And knock out your icer's lights,
But Coach D will put 'em on the field
...That very night!

Blow a 2 for M-S-U
Watch their B.A.C. rising
Spartan teams are bound to end
...up in a holding cell (Rah rah rah)
See their defense take the stand,
We're gonna win this case,
Fight! Fight! 20 percent of the team, Fight!
Another Brawl for M.S.U.

I would have liked one more year in the Spread with Denard. Possibility of a special season. That was my only reason for perhaps retaining Rodriguez.

That being said, being blown out by everyone important ever, and then Miss St. was disgusting and made me want to hurl. The Mattison hire is a breath of fresh air, and I think that everyone who isn't at least tentatively optimistic, or at least stuck in neutral, about Hoke should pump their brakes and give the man a friggin chance.

"We do not carry the ball this way at the University of Michigan. Love, Bo."